Ben's Notebook
by RaptorX5
Summary: These poems were written by Ben, found in a tattered notebook with the Manticore logo on the cover, that had the picture of the Blue Lady tapped to the inside, in Ben’s back pants pocket after Max had killed him. (Some interpretations of what I think Be
1. Poison God-Machine

AN: Thanks to Nevermore, Howard Barker, Lynn Buffkin, Denise Panfil, for their words and inspiration.

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Poison God-Machine. . . Nevermore

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"Sometimes bitterness is all you can hold on to, and within the bitterness I realize my weakness."

Feelings we forgot long ago,

It's been a while. . . since we've believed you,

Without going through the motions,

NO EMOTIONS!

We are but flesh and flesh is the weakness,

We are born of blood sinew and bone,

We're all just spinning in this useless hole in time,

On our way into the black unknown, With the nomies!

Why is this happening to me?

Why have I been forsaken by The Blue Lady?

Nothing numbs the pain any longer,

Please. . . I'm slipping away. . . Seizing!

Sir, Why can't you hear us?

Donald, Why aren't you listening?

Lydecker, Why must we fear you?

Sir, Why did you take her away?

Play dead, hold your breath, never speak out of turn,

Just assign the blame according to their game,

Your will seems cruel, controlled and illogical,

Do our words fall on deaf ears. . . are we just too small?

Please help us understand,

Are we your children?

Are we lost?

Now we're just gone. . . 


	2. Freedom

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Freedom

Free.

Free to speak what we think.

Free to think what we like.

Free to like what we want.

Free to want what we deserve.

Free to deserve the right to speak.

Free to speak on what to condemn.

Free to condemn those who speak.

I can't hear you soldier . . . 


	3. At Least It Was Evil

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At Least It Was Evil

Have you not studied the plagues of political death?

At least they were hated

At least they were victims of somebody's whim

There was consolation in it

The loathing of the persecutor as he slams the door

The casual indifference of the switch

There is evil at least in being murdered 

If only for the lines on your neck

Instead

We are dying now for curiosity

We are dying for the decent human habit

Of interfering with things

Educate that out of the psyche

You would have to create children who did not

When looking at the caterpillar

Study it's avoidance of the fire

Who looked in the pond and only looked

Who watched without changing

Who knew without altering

Who willing suffered a curable death

We are dying so innocently now

No machine guns

How calm it is outside the laboratories


	4. Shadows in the Midst

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Shadows in the Midst

Shadows in the midst

All around. . . 

Peaceful bliss

Peripheral waves,

Of those who are saved

Reached out . . .

Missed!

Voices of tranquility

Speaking to my heart

Joy. . .

Vanished!


	5. Dedication

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Dedication

Devotion to the family and the mission

Education in the finer forms of combat

Dedication to achieving the objective 

Intelligence, strength, speed, agility

Caution and confidence in all situations

Always achieve your primary goal soldier

Teamwork. There is no I in team

Interpret all signs of the enemy's weakness

Organization is key to success 

Never give up, never give in.


	6. Lend the Poor an Enemy

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Lend the Poor an Enemy

Lend the Poor an Enemy to feel their lives

Were not blindly blighted

And give the rich the gift of fear

Or they will never treasure what they accumulate

Look

I own nothing but my thought

Says the wise man

And in order not to stimulate

The anger of others

I walk in this filthy overcoat

Mumbling

Muttering

Hissing

I pretend to be mad

And perhaps

I have become so now


	7. The Bad Place

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Every eye sees it's own special vision;

Every ear hears a most different song.

In each man's troubled heart, an incision

would reveal a unique, shameful wrong.

Stranger fiends hide here in human guise

then reside in the valleys of hell.

But goodness, kindness and love arise

in the heart of the beast, as well.

~The Book of Counted Sorrows

The Bad Place

When I was younger I used to think the bad place was where they sent you for being a bad soldier. Down into the basement with the nomies. Now I guess you could say I'm older and wiser because now I know I was wrong. There is a much worse place then there. You get sent to the bad place after you die if you were a bad soldier or you lost your fait in The Blue Lady. The faithless went to the bad place along with the weak and the deserters. The only thing saving me now is my faith. Faith in The Blue Lady. Faith in the soldiers doctrine. Faith. Loyalty. Duty. Discipline. Respect. Strength. Selfless Service. Honor. Integrity. Personal Courage. Above all the Mission. My mission was to avoid the bad place. By deserting Manticore the night of the escape I was already half way there. I didn't want to fall any further. Above all was the mission. My mission: To Keep The Faith.

Straight out of hell. I came to the conclusion one night while we were still in Manticore that there had to be a place worse then being locked in the basement with the nomies in those padded cells. This was because I knew that the nomies could die! I saw one of them on the dissecting tables as I wandered around the compound one night when I couldn't sleep, a very rare occasion for me. I had managed to get past the area that we were allowed to roam freely and I ended up on the floor where the infirmary was. Out on the table was the nomie we had seen when we were marching that one day through the basement corridors. X-2 0045D. Cut open and gut like a fish. A long incision from breastbone to groin and three separate ones running horizontality pins holding back the flaps of skin. If nomies could die then there had to be somewhere else that they went for being bad soldiers, somewhere other then the basement. This was what the bad place was. 

The bad place. The place where you were never allowed to sleep and dream. Where they yell at you until your ears bleed and then keep on yelling. Hour after hour, day in, day out. They never stop reprimanding you for the sins you committed when you were alive, weather you could hear it or not. There is torture too, in the bad place. Torture worse then the Manticore doctors could ever dream up. Relentless pain, non-stop violence. This was where the truely evil dwelt and were sent. I only spoke of the good place to my siblings, I never wanted them to be afraid of the alternative. They were afraid enough of being sent down into the basement with the nomies. I had to protect them from learning the truth. In order to survive long enough to protect them always I knew I had to atone for my sins. So each time I hunted down and killed my facsimiles of X5-493 I was reconciled for one of my own sins. Always the perfect soldier following in Lydecker and Zack's footsteps. I didn't want to be sent to the bad place after I died. Dieing was always better then being sent back to Manticore, the first bad place I'd ever known of. 


End file.
